SPANISH NORTH AMERICA

• Spain originally claimed all of North America– Established oldest

city in the U.S.• St. Augustine, FL

– But never made any attempt to settle lands north of Florida

Spanish fort at St. Augustine

COLONIAL COMPETITION

• Spanish success in the New World stimulated three other nations to also get into the action– England, France, and the

Netherlands• At first, they had to satisfy

themselves with subsidizing pirates to plunder Spanish colonies and treasure ships

• But as Spain became weaker, all three began to explore the possibilities of establishing their own colonies north of Florida

ELIZABETH I (1558-1603)

• Became interested in New World colonies

• Read A Discourse on Western Plantations– By Richard Hakluyt– Stressed military

advantages England would receive if she colonized Atlantic coast of North America

FIRST ATTEMPT

• Made by Sir Humphrey Gilbert

• Tried to found colony on the coast of Newfoundland

• Gave up shortly after he arrived because of weather– Landed in the middle of

winter

• Killed in shipwreck on the way home near Azores Islands

SIR WALTER RALEIGH

• Gilbert’s half brother

• Claimed all land north of Florida for Elizabeth – Named it Virginia

• In honor of her nickname, the “Virgin Queen”

ROANOKE ISLAND

• First attempt to found colony on Roanoke Island was immediate failure

• Handpicked 118 men, women, and children for second attempt– Landed on island in 1587– Told supply ship would arrive in

1588– Raleigh ran out of money and

supply ship was delayed until 1590

• All colonists had disappeared

JOINT-STOCK COMPANIES

• Under James I, joint-stock companies were formed to finance colonial ventures– Business organizations in which a

large number of investors pooled their resources and then shared profits in proportion to their investment• If venture failed, investors only lost

their investment• They were not liable for entire debt

of company• Joint-stock companies had been

successful in financing trading expeditions to Russia and Middle EastJames I

THE VIRGINIA COMPANY

• Created in 1606 to colonize land first claimed by Sir Walter Raleigh

• Received no direct financial help from the British government– But needed government

permission to conduct its mission

• James I issued company a charter to found colony within a 100-mile area along coast of Virginia– Known as Jamestown

FIRST JAMESTOWN COLONISTS• 120 men left England in 3 ships

for Virginia in December 1606– Employees of Virginia

Company who received food, clothing, tools, weapons, and percentage of eventual profits in exchange for settling and maintaining the colony

• Colonists drawn from 3 groups of people– Down-on-their luck

gentlemen– Pardoned prisoners– Unemployed urban

craftsmen

DISASTER

• Colonists given three missions– Convert Indians to Christianity– Find gold– Discover Northwest Passage

• Failed in all three• In fact, Jamestown proved to be a

deathtrap– Only 38 of the original 104

colonists survived the first year– 50% of replacement colonists

died within a year of arriving– High death rates continued into

the 1620s

PROBLEMS I• Location

– Narrow thickly forested peninsula 57 miles up the James River from the Atlantic coast• Easy to moor and unload ocean-

going ships right at the colony• Easy to defend

– Also loaded with malaria-bearing mosquitoes

– James River had 5 times the safe level of salt in it

– River also polluted by colonists and was full of dysentery and typhoid germs

PROBLEMS II

• Inadequate nutrition

• Famine was a constant threat for the first 12 years

• Worst point was reached in winter of 1609-10– People ate dogs, cats,

rats, snakes, leather, tree bark

– Incidents of cannibalism

REASONS FOR FAMINE

• The problem was not that food could not be grown in the region—it was that the colonists would not grow it

– Virginia Company originally told them not to waste time farming and then withheld supplies when they didn’t find gold

– Colonists had no farming experience at all

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH• Seized political control of

Jamestown in 1608– Imposed brutal military

discipline– Saved colony from complete

collapse• But was hated by the other

colonists• Ultimately forced Virginia

Company to develop a more systematic and permanent solution for the colony’s problems

SIR THOMAS DALE

• In 1610, the Virginia Company appointed Sir Thomas Dale as governor and authorized him to put colony under martial law–And it was very

harsh

DALE’S DICTATORSHIP• Every colonist given a military rank,

place under the control of officers, and subjected to severe military discipline

• Everyone forced to work a specific number of days at jobs assigned to them

• Goof-offs and thieves were punished harshly

• Correspondence was censored and no one could leave without Dale’s permission

• Some colonists ran away to live with Indians– But they were always caught and

executed

INDIAN RELATIONS

• With some exceptions, most colonists viewed local Indians as sub-human and little better than animals– Big exception was

marriage of colonist John Rolfe to Pocahantas, daughter of local chief Powhaten

WAR• Colonists raided Indian

villages, kicked them off their land, and even murdered them when they resisted

• Indians struck back in 1622– Attacked Jamestown

and killed 347 colonists– Began 20 years of on-

and-off warfare– By 1644, surviving

Indians were forced to move west

HOUSE OF BURGESSES• With end of Dale’s dictatorship,

Virginia Company tried to make colony more attractive to new settlers– Repealed Dale’s harsh laws and

created a representative assembly • Law making powers were limited

and subject to approval by governor

• But company did promise not to impose new rules without prior consent of Assembly

– Assembly made up of governor, his advisors, and 22 elected colonists (burgesses)

– Assembly called House of Burgesses

OTHER REFORMS• Women were recruited so that normal family life

could develop in the colony• Company announced that any man in England

would receive 50 acres in the colony for each servant he sent over– Also guaranteed that these servants would

work for their masters in the colony for a specified period of time and then would be released and receive their own plot of free land

– Allowed wealthy men to acquire land in colony without leaving England

– Provided poor, unemployed people a way to go to the colony and start a new life

• Indentured service system– One of the major mechanisms for the

population of all of English North America

TOBACCO• Native to western

hemisphere• Indians in Caribbean had

taught Spanish how to grow it– Spanish began to export

it to Europe• Europeans at first valued it

as a medicine– But many began to

smoke it for recreational reasons and Spanish tobacco growers became tremendously wealthy

JOHN ROLFE, TOBACCO PIONEER

• Indians around Jamestown grew tobacco but it was inferior in quality to Spanish Caribbean tobacco and did not sell in Europe

• John Rolfe obtained Caribbean tobacco seeds and tried planting them in Jamestown– Plants well suited to local

climate and soil– Quality only slightly inferior to

Caribbean tobacco– Jamestown now had a

profitable export commodity

GROWTH OF TOBACCO PRODUCTION

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TOBACCO AND POPULATION I

• Settlers began to fan out from the original settlement, starting farms up and down the James and York rivers and deeper into the interior– Land was free– Labor was scarce– Tobacco growing used

up land quickly due to sloppy and haphazard methods and lack of fertilization

– Gave rise to plantations

TOBACCO AND POPULATION II

• Once tobacco growing induced people to spread out over a larger area, they were no longer concentrated in unhealthy Jamestown settlement– Often ended up in healthier areas– Also lowered population density, which hindered spread of disease

• Population of colony gradually grew as a result– Reached 30,000 people by 1670– Still a dangerous place to live but it was no longer destined to be

another Roanoke Island

ATTACK ON THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES

• King Charles I dissolved the Virginia Company in 1624 and made Virginia a “royal colony”– Owned by the king

and administered by governors appointed by him

• Charles gave his governors the power to do whatever they wanted without consulting the House of Burgesses

IMPORTANT DEVELOPMENT• Royal governors found it impossible to get anything done without the

cooperation of influential colonists– They were appointed to governor’s advisory council in order to gain

their support and cooperation– Also began to convene meetings of the House of Burgesses to gain

broad base of support– Two house colonial legislature gradually evolved

• Upper house: advisory council• Lower house: elected House of Burgesses

–Claimed right to approve all taxes before they were imposed on colony» In order to guarantee smooth running of colony Governors

conceded this right »Charles ignored this violation of his orders due to his

absorption with growing problems in England• Virginian settlers gained freedom to run their own local affairs with

minimal interference from England